(This is my first post, so apologies in advance if I unwittingly violate any conventions. I'm grateful for any suggestions or advice.)
I haven't found a thread quite like this, so here goes. In 1940 Germany was extremely dependent on iron ore from Sweden, to such an extent that the Allies believed that disruption of ore supply of even a few months could virtually destroy the German war effort. During the months when the north Baltic Sea wasn't frozen, Germany could ship the ore from the Swedish port of Luleaa. However, in the winter the Germans could only get the ore by having it shipped by rail from the Swedish mines of Gaallivare and Kiruna to the northern Norway port of Narvik, after which it would be loaded on German cargo ships which closely hugged the coast of Norway to avoid being sunk by the Royal Navy in international waters.
For months after declaring war on Germany, the British and French debated whether to invade parts of Norway and Sweden, and/or to mine Norwegian territorial waters, to cut off Germany's iron ore supply. It's reasonably well known that just ONE DAY before the Germans invaded Norway, on April 8, 1940, Britain - with absolutely no inkling of Germany's invasion plans - violated Norwegian neutrality by mining Norwegian waters.
What's less known is that about a month before the German invasion of Norway, after a great deal of dithering, Britain and France had come within mere hours of invading Narvik and striking out overland into Sweden with the unstated goal of taking over the Swedish iron ore mines. The pretext for this mission was to be that the Allies were "responding" to an appeal from Finland for assistance in fighting the USSR in the Winter War, and in fact the Allies lobbied Finland to make such an appeal. But the truth, as fascinatingly laid out in Francois Kersaudy's excellent book "Norway 1940" as well as other sources, was that the British and French saw helping the Finns as merely a convenient fig leaf. The true Allied goals were to cut off the iron ore, and also to respond to powerful political pressure that the Allies "do something, anything" during the interminable Sitzkrieg.
Amazingly, the prospect of Britain and France going to war against Norway, Sweden and even the USSR came within only a few days or even hours from happening. The initial force of ships, men and materiel had already been assembled for this half-baked crusade in early March 1940 when, hours before "Operation BK" was to start on March 13, it was called off when word came that the Finns and Soviets had signed a peace agreement. With rumors of an imminent peace deal, Neville Chamberlain had already uttered his thoroughly uninspiring parting words to his commanders: "Good-bye and good luck to you - if you go."
Things could easily have been different. The negotiations between the Finns and Soviets might have taken a little longer. The incredibly amateurish discussions and war-gaming among the British and French politicians and commanders - including First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill - might have been wrapped up a few days earlier. Either way, it is entirely plausible that, with just the tiniest diversion from real history, an alternate history could have seen a joint British/French force landing at Narvik, trying to take over the town, and then marching east into Sweden and beyond.
I say "trying" because the Allies' planning efforts were utterly, amazingly inept. The story of how the German commander of the Scandinavian invasion had to buy a tourist "Baedeker" guidebook to begin his war planning is somewhat well known. But if anything, the Allies' planning was even sketchier: they could have used a Baedeker at the end of their planning, let alone the beginning. They had only the most rudimentary ideas of how to land at Narvik and take over the Swedish oil fields, let alone how to go to war with the Finns against the Soviets. They seemed to believe that both the Norwegians and the Swedes would assent to the endeavor with perhaps only a few sharply worded protests. Their orders were vague to the extreme: they were discouraged from actually firing on the defenders, but they were also told "not to be deterred by a show of resistance." Invasion would likely have led to resistance: i.e., gunfire; i.e., war. And in fact, while the Norwegian Army was abysmal, the Swedes would probably have defeated the Allies' forces and perhaps even joined with the Norwegians to send the Allies hightailing it back to their Narvik transports.
This is a very lengthy prologue, but the real intent of my discussion is to ask what would have happened if in fact the Brits and French had invaded Norway and Sweden, responding to an appeal from the Finns for help in fighting the USSR, in early March 1940 before the Finns were forced to sue for peace. Suppose Operation BK had gone off as "planned," if one can call it that: What would have been the repercussions?
First, suppose that the attack was somehow successful: that the British/French expeditionary force was able to land at Narvik, travel to the Swedish iron ore mines and secure them (against undoubted attack from the Swedes), and finally end up having a few thousand men and machines to throw into the Finnish lines against the Soviets? The result would be that in April 1940 the Allies would be at war not only with Norway, but with Sweden, and with the USSR.
And how long-lived would such a successful invasion have been? The Swedes were neutral but they were not weak-willed, nor were they militarily weak. They were not about to give in to loss of their iron mines and violation of their neutrality. They might even have invited German military support - perhaps even USSR support? - to "take back our country."
Would Germany's invasion of France and the Low Countries then have been postponed while Germany sided with Norway, Sweden and the USSR to counterattack the initially successful British and French invasion of Scandinavia? Maybe. There are so many possible changes to other parts of our timeline that I can't even begin to list them.
But second, suppose - as frankly seems far more likely - that like everything else the Brits and French were touching during this time period - the venture ignominiously failed right from the outset. The Allies would of course have been able to take over Narvik and at least start into Sweden - they were too strong to be beaten by the tiny, hopelessly outdated Norwegian "army" - but suppose that after that they were quickly defeated by the Swedes and forced to withdraw back to their Narvik ships within a few weeks, by April 1940.
A second Gallipoli!
The first Gallipoli had resulted in Winston Churchill having to give up his WWI stint as First Lord of the Admiralty; now history would repeat itself a quarter-century later, because one of the persons most strongly in favor of this rash venture was none other than Winston Churchill. In late 1939 and early 1940 he was constantly imploring Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to take action against the neutral Scandinavians: Invade their cities. Mine their territorial waters. Don't worry about violating neutrality. Churchill was a good and noble man, but in his would-be machinations against the neutral Norwegians and Swedes he almost reminds one of the Nazis scheming against Holland and Belgium.
So if Operation BK had failed, what would have been the political repercussions? I think that Chamberlain would have tried to place the blame elsewhere, and Churchill had said enough in Parliament and behind closed doors to be a very easy target. So, a mere month before the Blitzkrieg, Churchill would have been booted from the government in public derision - as would other seasoned British veterans, all reeling from the shame of the British and French combined military might being defeated by two pipsqueak Scandinavian countries.
And can one imagine Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the many other heroic efforts of Britain in the trying years to come with anyone other than Churchill at the British helm? If instead Chamberlain had tried to muddle through, or worse yet someone like Lord Halifax had taken over, where would Britain be today?
After the British-French defeat at Narvik, it hardly matters whether Germany had invaded Norway and Denmark in April 1940. Let's assume that they did. The difference from our timeline wouldn't have been that much - except that the Norwegian king and government may very well not have tried to escape Norway to Britain to seek refuge from the Nazis. They may have been much more inclined to negotiate a peaceful occupation by the Germans, having already been double-crossed by the Allies.
So: A matter of a few days in March 1940 separated our timeline from a very different one in which Churchill ceased to exist as a political and moral force, the Brits and French were at war with the USSR a good year before the Germans had even thought of doing so, and the Allies' citizens were thoroughly demoralized at the thought that their armies couldn't even defeat Norway and Sweden, let alone the most powerful army then on earth. One can easily imagine a negotiated peace in the West.
And then, Hitler would have a much freer hand with the USSR. Not only would the Allies' situation with the USSR have been extremely difficult to salvage if and when Germany itself double-crossed the Soviets and invaded, but to Americans and others the Allies - even if they hadn't already sought peace - would have ceded a massive amount of the moral high ground to the Nazis. The Allies would have been guilty of the same "trampling of neutral countries" that the Axis was, before and after Narvik. There would have been a rough moral equivalence in the eyes of the world.
The isolationists in the U.S. may also have been emboldened and empowered, perhaps to the point where they were less willing to press the issue with Japan. Could Operation BK have led to a Wendell Wilkie win in November 1940? Surely not. But in terms of affecting American strategic and political aims we're talking a matter of only a few degrees: perhaps just enough to cause Americans to care a little bit less - but enough less - about whether the Brits/French or the Germans ultimately "won" in Europe - at least until much farther down the road when Hitler's devilry was exposed in all its evil. Perhaps just enough that the Americans and Japanese would have been able to work something out in October 1941 …
I haven't found a thread quite like this, so here goes. In 1940 Germany was extremely dependent on iron ore from Sweden, to such an extent that the Allies believed that disruption of ore supply of even a few months could virtually destroy the German war effort. During the months when the north Baltic Sea wasn't frozen, Germany could ship the ore from the Swedish port of Luleaa. However, in the winter the Germans could only get the ore by having it shipped by rail from the Swedish mines of Gaallivare and Kiruna to the northern Norway port of Narvik, after which it would be loaded on German cargo ships which closely hugged the coast of Norway to avoid being sunk by the Royal Navy in international waters.
For months after declaring war on Germany, the British and French debated whether to invade parts of Norway and Sweden, and/or to mine Norwegian territorial waters, to cut off Germany's iron ore supply. It's reasonably well known that just ONE DAY before the Germans invaded Norway, on April 8, 1940, Britain - with absolutely no inkling of Germany's invasion plans - violated Norwegian neutrality by mining Norwegian waters.
What's less known is that about a month before the German invasion of Norway, after a great deal of dithering, Britain and France had come within mere hours of invading Narvik and striking out overland into Sweden with the unstated goal of taking over the Swedish iron ore mines. The pretext for this mission was to be that the Allies were "responding" to an appeal from Finland for assistance in fighting the USSR in the Winter War, and in fact the Allies lobbied Finland to make such an appeal. But the truth, as fascinatingly laid out in Francois Kersaudy's excellent book "Norway 1940" as well as other sources, was that the British and French saw helping the Finns as merely a convenient fig leaf. The true Allied goals were to cut off the iron ore, and also to respond to powerful political pressure that the Allies "do something, anything" during the interminable Sitzkrieg.
Amazingly, the prospect of Britain and France going to war against Norway, Sweden and even the USSR came within only a few days or even hours from happening. The initial force of ships, men and materiel had already been assembled for this half-baked crusade in early March 1940 when, hours before "Operation BK" was to start on March 13, it was called off when word came that the Finns and Soviets had signed a peace agreement. With rumors of an imminent peace deal, Neville Chamberlain had already uttered his thoroughly uninspiring parting words to his commanders: "Good-bye and good luck to you - if you go."
Things could easily have been different. The negotiations between the Finns and Soviets might have taken a little longer. The incredibly amateurish discussions and war-gaming among the British and French politicians and commanders - including First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill - might have been wrapped up a few days earlier. Either way, it is entirely plausible that, with just the tiniest diversion from real history, an alternate history could have seen a joint British/French force landing at Narvik, trying to take over the town, and then marching east into Sweden and beyond.
I say "trying" because the Allies' planning efforts were utterly, amazingly inept. The story of how the German commander of the Scandinavian invasion had to buy a tourist "Baedeker" guidebook to begin his war planning is somewhat well known. But if anything, the Allies' planning was even sketchier: they could have used a Baedeker at the end of their planning, let alone the beginning. They had only the most rudimentary ideas of how to land at Narvik and take over the Swedish oil fields, let alone how to go to war with the Finns against the Soviets. They seemed to believe that both the Norwegians and the Swedes would assent to the endeavor with perhaps only a few sharply worded protests. Their orders were vague to the extreme: they were discouraged from actually firing on the defenders, but they were also told "not to be deterred by a show of resistance." Invasion would likely have led to resistance: i.e., gunfire; i.e., war. And in fact, while the Norwegian Army was abysmal, the Swedes would probably have defeated the Allies' forces and perhaps even joined with the Norwegians to send the Allies hightailing it back to their Narvik transports.
This is a very lengthy prologue, but the real intent of my discussion is to ask what would have happened if in fact the Brits and French had invaded Norway and Sweden, responding to an appeal from the Finns for help in fighting the USSR, in early March 1940 before the Finns were forced to sue for peace. Suppose Operation BK had gone off as "planned," if one can call it that: What would have been the repercussions?
First, suppose that the attack was somehow successful: that the British/French expeditionary force was able to land at Narvik, travel to the Swedish iron ore mines and secure them (against undoubted attack from the Swedes), and finally end up having a few thousand men and machines to throw into the Finnish lines against the Soviets? The result would be that in April 1940 the Allies would be at war not only with Norway, but with Sweden, and with the USSR.
And how long-lived would such a successful invasion have been? The Swedes were neutral but they were not weak-willed, nor were they militarily weak. They were not about to give in to loss of their iron mines and violation of their neutrality. They might even have invited German military support - perhaps even USSR support? - to "take back our country."
Would Germany's invasion of France and the Low Countries then have been postponed while Germany sided with Norway, Sweden and the USSR to counterattack the initially successful British and French invasion of Scandinavia? Maybe. There are so many possible changes to other parts of our timeline that I can't even begin to list them.
But second, suppose - as frankly seems far more likely - that like everything else the Brits and French were touching during this time period - the venture ignominiously failed right from the outset. The Allies would of course have been able to take over Narvik and at least start into Sweden - they were too strong to be beaten by the tiny, hopelessly outdated Norwegian "army" - but suppose that after that they were quickly defeated by the Swedes and forced to withdraw back to their Narvik ships within a few weeks, by April 1940.
A second Gallipoli!
The first Gallipoli had resulted in Winston Churchill having to give up his WWI stint as First Lord of the Admiralty; now history would repeat itself a quarter-century later, because one of the persons most strongly in favor of this rash venture was none other than Winston Churchill. In late 1939 and early 1940 he was constantly imploring Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to take action against the neutral Scandinavians: Invade their cities. Mine their territorial waters. Don't worry about violating neutrality. Churchill was a good and noble man, but in his would-be machinations against the neutral Norwegians and Swedes he almost reminds one of the Nazis scheming against Holland and Belgium.
So if Operation BK had failed, what would have been the political repercussions? I think that Chamberlain would have tried to place the blame elsewhere, and Churchill had said enough in Parliament and behind closed doors to be a very easy target. So, a mere month before the Blitzkrieg, Churchill would have been booted from the government in public derision - as would other seasoned British veterans, all reeling from the shame of the British and French combined military might being defeated by two pipsqueak Scandinavian countries.
And can one imagine Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and the many other heroic efforts of Britain in the trying years to come with anyone other than Churchill at the British helm? If instead Chamberlain had tried to muddle through, or worse yet someone like Lord Halifax had taken over, where would Britain be today?
After the British-French defeat at Narvik, it hardly matters whether Germany had invaded Norway and Denmark in April 1940. Let's assume that they did. The difference from our timeline wouldn't have been that much - except that the Norwegian king and government may very well not have tried to escape Norway to Britain to seek refuge from the Nazis. They may have been much more inclined to negotiate a peaceful occupation by the Germans, having already been double-crossed by the Allies.
So: A matter of a few days in March 1940 separated our timeline from a very different one in which Churchill ceased to exist as a political and moral force, the Brits and French were at war with the USSR a good year before the Germans had even thought of doing so, and the Allies' citizens were thoroughly demoralized at the thought that their armies couldn't even defeat Norway and Sweden, let alone the most powerful army then on earth. One can easily imagine a negotiated peace in the West.
And then, Hitler would have a much freer hand with the USSR. Not only would the Allies' situation with the USSR have been extremely difficult to salvage if and when Germany itself double-crossed the Soviets and invaded, but to Americans and others the Allies - even if they hadn't already sought peace - would have ceded a massive amount of the moral high ground to the Nazis. The Allies would have been guilty of the same "trampling of neutral countries" that the Axis was, before and after Narvik. There would have been a rough moral equivalence in the eyes of the world.
The isolationists in the U.S. may also have been emboldened and empowered, perhaps to the point where they were less willing to press the issue with Japan. Could Operation BK have led to a Wendell Wilkie win in November 1940? Surely not. But in terms of affecting American strategic and political aims we're talking a matter of only a few degrees: perhaps just enough to cause Americans to care a little bit less - but enough less - about whether the Brits/French or the Germans ultimately "won" in Europe - at least until much farther down the road when Hitler's devilry was exposed in all its evil. Perhaps just enough that the Americans and Japanese would have been able to work something out in October 1941 …
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